I WRITE in response to the article of September 26 regarding Conservative Councillors’ plans to set up new parishes in order to make increases in the council-tax over the coming years.

In answering a public question on Thursday, Councillor Renard confirmed his administration is looking at parishing all the non-parished areas which includes West Swindon, Central Swindon, Old Town, Lawns, as well as Walcot, Parks, Eldene and Liden.

The Conservative Group has disputed the fact that they wish to create new parishes in order raise the council tax for residents in current non-parished areas by an average of £120 by 2018.

But the fact is they have already explained to us they wish to create parishes in order to increase the council tax by £75 through a parish precept and have also said in their Medium Term Resourcing Plan they have modelled their forthcoming budgets on increasing the general council tax to “just below the 2 per cent current referendum threshold”.

A £75 increase on the current Swindon Special Rate for current non-parished areas (which in parished areas is the parish precept), plus a 1.9 per cent increase in the general council tax element in 2016/17 and 2017/18, equates to an extra £118.37 charge for average Band D households.

As Councillor Elliott has said the Labour Group have been fully engaged and briefed on this matter and we thank him and his officers for their assistance.

He has been most helpful so far in keeping Labour Councillors informed and that is why we can be clearer in the sums.

If he still maintains these sums are incorrect then please can he or one of his Conservative cabinet colleagues correct us with the accurate figure they plan to increase the council tax by, through introducing these new parish councils.

Surely being open with the public about exactly how much you plan to increase the council tax is the best way of proceeding, then we can have the debate about whether there is value in introducing parish councils and increasing the council tax in order to save Streetsmart services in this way.

But what we must not do is seek to avoid being straight with council taxpayers over exactly how much is planned to be increased in council tax over the next few years through newly created parish councils.

We say it will be approximately £120 from current plans. If you think we are wrong please say what the figure will be and once we have this information clear we can have a fully informed debate about the value of creating parish councils.

COUN JUNAB ALI Deputy Leader of the Labour Group